Social & Emotional Learning Alignments in the General Music Classroom

What is it about?

Many general music program activities reinforce and help students understand concepts of self-management, self-awareness, responsible decision making, relationship skills, and social awareness. Activities such as improvisation, ensemble playing and singing, and defining emotions with music can be used to develop social and emotional leaning skills in the general music classroom. The primary objective of this article is to help general music teachers understand that general music learning environments naturally lend themselves well to aiding in these efforts.

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Photo by Anna Earl on Unsplash

Photo by Anna Earl on Unsplash

Why is it important?

By integrating Social and Emotional Learning into the general music classroom, teachers can expand content learning to better address cognitive and emotional self-regulation, interactions with others, and decision making. They also provide opportunities for students to identify, analyze and solve problems in authentic and meaningful ways that can profoundly impact the lives of students. In these and many other ways, music and SEL complement and complete each other as they both seek to improve the lives of students and create pathways for student success.

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